One of the most exciting aspects to social media is the prospect of facilitating real collaboration between brands and their consumers. One of the agencies at the forefront of the crowdsourcing move (some would argue too much) is Victors and Spoils so I was interested to see a couple of blog posts from one of the “big brains” at V&S outlining a couple of their processes:

This is basically collaboration 101; brands engaging with people in online conversations. Think of Old Spice, Best BuyTwelpforce and Strip To Your SmartWool.

2. Crowdsourcing

These are brands that tap into people’s collective brainpower and invite them to submit ideas that deliver against a setof rules – a brief. Think of Pepsi Max & Doritos Crash the Superbowl or Virgin America’s Toronto Provocateur.

3. Co-creation

Co-creation involves working on new product and service ideas together with the customers who are going to buy them. An obvious example is My Starbuck, but I’m also really struck by Nike 6.0 ID Nation StyleLab, which effectively turns Nike ID’s original mass customization (people designing their own shoe) into co-creation (people being ableto buy shoes that other people designed).

4. Collaborative Consumption

With crowdsourcing and co-creation people help brands produce better products. But the other side of the coin, collaborative consumption, is also getting more popular, from car-sharing (Zip Car, Greenwheels) and bike-sharing (Vélib, B-Cycle) to group buying power (Groupon,Walmart CrowdSaver).

5. Collaborative System

Finally, new business models are emerging that place collaboration at their core. The brand is shaped by an ecosystem of participants. Successful recent examples are Threadless, AirBnB and American Express OPEN.

Many brands are jumping on the collaborative bandwagon with social media initiatives or creative competitions. For instance, 3M Submit Your Idea or Nokia Tune Remake. But there’s no collaborative relationship if people don’t know about the Empowerment tools, or don’t care about them. These brands have started their collaborative journey; next step is to either increase relevance of their tools or to better promote them.

2. Potentials

These are brands that people want to collaborate with, but the brands don’t yet offer the tools to do so – at the risk of losing opportunity or goodwill. It’s not a bad position to start from; next step is to start developing collaborative tools and put people’s energy to use. Harley-Davidson and DC Shoes are great examples here.

3. Newbies

In this case there’s hardly an existing relationship; both Empowerment and Common Ground are at a low level. This can be the case with existing brands that are out of touch or with entirely new brands and startups. Next step for existing brands is to become genuinely interested in what people are passionate about – otherwise they may soon become irrelevant. New brands and startups have the opportunity to build a brand from scratch and work with consumers to figure out what the brand will become, simultaneously building Empowerment and Common Ground. Brikki.com (crowdsourced children’s stories) is an example of a completely new idea that has the potential to grow with its consumers from day 1. AirBnB is an example of a startup that went this route already. By involving consumers early on AirBnB was pushed beyond what the founders initially envisioned the brand to be, with an active community as a result.

4. Collaborators

There are many possible scenario’s here, with the most iconic relationship type being the collaborative system where reciprocity can come from anywhere in the ecosystem. Not many brands have achieved this status yet, but many are well on their way such as Threadless, AirBnB and American Express OPEN. A typical next step for Collaborators is to increase engagement with all people (not just innovators and creators), consumer segments and other stakeholders. Other typical next steps include expanding the collaboration arena (e.g. beyond digital into physical spaces) and turning one-off collaborative initiatives into an integral part of a brand’s product offering and communication.

3D projection is any method of mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane. As most current methods for displaying graphical data are based on planar two-dimensional media, the use of this type of projection is widespread, especially in computer graphics, engineering and drafting.

The result is a high impact piece of creative full of shock, awe and what we at DDB call ShareValue – you just can’t help but talk about it with your networks, online or off.

3D projection mapping has recently emerged as one of the coolest forms of advertising, with big companies like Nokia, Samsung and BMW projecting beautiful 3D video displays on buildings around the world and sharing their campaigns on the web. 3D projection mapping has become something of a recent obsession […] for the advertising world.

It’s likely too early to say. I would imagine the cost and logistics are pretty prohibitive right now and even the videos below do not have a massive amount of views. The quality of the execution varies as well so it is imperative to have the right vendor and to publicise, through all channels, both pre and post.

Examples

Toyota used 3D projection mapping to illustrate Auris Hybrid recycling the energy it was using.

“They want to sell cars and we want to sell music, it’s getting that symbiotic relationship to work, which is interesting and challenging,” said Sister Bliss, founder member of Faithless. “They wanted us to be involved in the creative process, check the script and the director and be totally involved in every way.”

Elena Bernardelli, marketing director for Fiat UK, said she was “quite surprised” that the band allowed the car to be featured so heavily in the video, which includes shots of the Punto Evo’s steering wheel and dashboard as puppets of Sister Bliss and the Faithless vocalist Maxi Jazz dance manically on strings hanging from the car’s rear-view mirror. “The idea of dolls and rear-view mirrors was a fantastic way to show the interior of the car,” Ms Bernardelli said.

Product placement in music (predominantly hip hop) and even the literary scene has been around for years but this sort of symbiosis between product and media is an interesting twist. While music is only promoted for a short period following its release, the videos have been enjoying prolonged, long tail success on YouTube – often getting millions of views from users seeking out the content.

While without a reord label, “Faithless share the same management team – ATC Courtyard – as Radiohead, who have been at the forefront of revolutionising music distribution since cutting ties with their label EMI and offering downloads of their 2007 album In Rainbows for whatever fans were prepared to pay for it.” (again from the Telegraph).

*Disclosure – DDB worldwide, and in Canada, works on competing car clients to Fiat.

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I’ve long said, or at least tried to say, that what really interests me about the social media revolution isn’t the “media” part but the “social” part. What behaviours are the technologies bringing out of us, rather than the technologies themselves. That’s why I’m short on Twitter yet fascinated by it at the same time.

The new breed of technologies which we’re looking at now all have two things in common. One, they are built on top of existing platforms (Facebook and the mobile phone) and Two, they incorporate game theory. The platform piece has been done to death (you may have heard of the iPad and the 70bn apps it launches with?) but the game theory is the one which really interests me.

Gaming structures have long been applied to real-world scenarios, a strategy championed by the celebrated games designer Jane McGonigal, who argues for the benefits of utilising gaming skills such as problem-solving and teamwork.Her Cryptozoo project for the American Heart Foundation encouraged players to chase around a city hunting mysterious animals – exercising along the way.

But this piece is fascinating:

“When people think of computer games, they often think of playing in a virtual world that doesn’t exist in reality,” [Jane McGonigal] told the WorldChanging network last month. “But alternate reality game designers are trying to get people to play in the real world. We want people to bring the same curiosity, wonder, and optimism that you feel when playing your favourite video games into your real lives and real problems.”

So what does this new element of consumer behaviour tell us?

For media companies with large, engaged and passionate audiences, this is a field rich in potential. Simple games structures and rewards for frequent, interesting and valuable commenters could increase loyalty and traffic, or encourage teams of readers to contribute to crowdsourced projects to earn points. The opportunities are only as limited as imagination and resources – both in short supply in the media industry at present.

For brands looking to succeed in the social media space, the insight that one of the ways to do this is to put your consumers and users in competition with each other, is invaluable.

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I spotted a great new campaign from my old client, Maple Leaf Foods, to promote the new line of resealable bacon packs. Take a look at the Web site (RepublicOfBacon.com) here but the thing I love the most about this campaign is the video component, featuring the fictional character, Safety Sergeant Patrick Tumms in a series of awkward PSAs which are embedded for your viewing pleasure below:

Bacon Theft:

Bacon Danger:

Bacon Tragedy:

I don’t know about you, but I could go for a sandwich right about now. Kudos to the team at Maple Leaf Foods and John St advertising for this one.

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Everything posted on this blog is my personal opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of my employer or its clients. DDB is a global agency so any mention of any organisation could be a conflict of interests but not one that I can disclose.